❤️ Dispatch #6: Confessions of a Guilty Bystander

Musings on unfolding in a world of increasing chaos.

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in March 1958, Thomas Merton—Christian Trappist monk, writer, and mystic—had an experience that would transform both his life and his understanding of what it means to be spiritually awake in the modern world.

"I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people," he would later write, "that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers."

I remember having a similar moment in 2010. It was on the heels of a significant breakup. There was a month that Fall when it felt like my consciousness had expanded in every direction.

I was on fire.

I could not look at another person and see them as separate from myself.

The intensity of that moment in time faded, but the knowing has remained.

An undercurrent of unity in a world of separation.

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I’m living in Berlin, Germany.

Lately, I’ve been recovering from a vicious case of acute bronchitis, which has meant a lot of time drinking fluids, moving slowly, and digesting the last several years of life.

As I have this individual experience, the Trump administration has been in place for a month and a half in America.

It’s an upside down world that I see starting to take hold.

Friends becoming adversaries.

Adversaries becoming idols.

The cruel dismantling of federal agencies,

and the chaos that comes from leadership focused on the whims and favor of a single individual.

A message about the coming golden age of America,

that feels suspiciously like the worship of a golden calf.

As I absorb the news, absorb life, and adjust to being in a foreign country,

Merton has been on the mind a lot.

Merton’s career as a monk was marked by an intense life lived in solitude.

When he had his unitive moment in Louisville, he had already written many books (he would go on to write 50 before his death).

After that moment, there was a clear shift from the more inwardly focused life of the contemplative, to the socially and politically conscious Merton who became heavily invested in the Civil Rights movement and peace activism. Much of his time was then spent in correspondence with leaders around the world, and he built an international reputation for his advocacy of the in-dwelling Presence of Christ in the hearts of all. He was also a curious conversation partner with other non-Christian faiths, especially Zen Buddhism.

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A tension in Merton’s life that has appeared in my own is the dance between contemplation and action.

The work of “putting on the mind of Christ” (Presence, Universe, Non-dual Awareness, [INSERT POINTER OF CHOICE HERE]) is often a solitary work, though it happens most assuredly in relationship.

The awareness that knows directly that there is no true separation between each other is the end of violence, but we often remain identified with a world of form where we must protect ourselves and our identities from threat.

This inner work of unfolding into our True Selves as Presence is a challenge when we live as lay people in the world of things.

The world calls for a conscious engagement with human suffering. Make no mistake, there is tremendous suffering in the world.

In many developed countries, wealth inequality has never been greater. The richest people in the world have more than they ever have in history, and they are successfully selling the impossible dream that you can join them in the 1% to many who support their efforts to consolidate and advance their power.

Technology has advanced so quickly that we can’t keep up with how it is re-shaping what it means to be human. The very devices that connect us superficially keep us dis-connected with ourselves and the people we care about. An existential anxiety is creeping in as we question what it means to be human as artificial intelligence gains traction and the world’s largest technology firms show no signs of slowing down an arms race to control the most advanced AI models. We may pretend that this isn’t about geo-political interests and how this race will determine who dominates on the global economic stage and who doesn’t - but there’s no question that this and many other complex influences are shaping the reasons why billions of dollars are being poured into advancing artificial intelligence as quickly as possible.

The stage of the world is complex. When has it ever not been? We look for clear chains of cause and effect, but we can find none. We look for the one lever we can pull to make it all make sense, and it is impossible to find.

So here we find ourselves, in the midst of this tension - to focus on ourselves and what we need to survive in our own world, and to find ways to stay engaged with what is unfolding in larger systemic scales.

We can’t solve the problems of today with the same consciousness that creates them. Unfolding into who we are as Presence is the antidote to the suffering we experience. When we know deeply that who we are does not depend on how the outer world of experience shifts and moves, we can stand more firmly in our engagement with it. We are “in the world, not of it”. Our action flows from a true compassion, not a facsimile of compassion born of our need to be seen as compassionate. Our power is sourced from our depth, not from the balances of our bank accounts, our status in dominance hierarchies, or our national allegiances.

We meet the moment we’re in, not the moment we think we’re supposed to be in.

Even if that moment requires a tremendous amount of coughing up thick wads of mucus.

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This is meandering, and I don’t know that I would call it poetry.

Merton has been on my mind because I’m asking questions about what it means to deepen into the contemplative path without ignoring what’s unfolding politically and socially.

It’s a false narrative. The more deeply we unfold into our fullness at all depths, the more sustainably we can engage with the work that is ours to do.

Merton was not perfect, and he wasn’t a saint, but his life shows me that it’s possible to engage the inner work in a way that allows it to become an expression of deep care for the suffering of the world. To know that sometimes the words you write can impact others in ways that you can’t imagine or control. That you can only work with what’s in front of you, not your ideas of what should be here instead.

Ultimately, I believe that the answer to the moment we’re in is the same answer it’s always been through human history.

Deepen in love.

Live from that place.

Focus on the neighbor in front of you.

Love them the same.

Let the news cycles do what they will.

Know that the many things will always be the many things.

Let that be okay too.

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I love you.

Do you know that?

I love you, because I am you.

And you are me.

We are inseparable, and yet the very differences we experience in each individual expression of humanity we encounter has the potential to offer a doorway to knowing that unitive truth.

The immortal diamond is a single rock with many facets.

A single light shines through and comes out many colors.

The more we unfold into the paradox of this truth,

the more our world will know a lasting peace.

Not because we finally have the right systems in place,

but because we know more fully who we are together.

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I wonder where you are with “all of this”. How are you responding? Reacting? What arises for you with the ideas of mysticism, “raising” consciousness, and the inner work of integration? Is it irresponsible, or responsible? Is it so far outside your experience that none of this even makes sense?

Things change, but they never change.

I leave you with the words of Bill Hicks.

I love you.

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“The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are.

The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while.

Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?"

And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride."

And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real."

It's just a ride.

But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that?

And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride.

And we can change it any time we want.

It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money.

Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love.

The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off.

The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.

Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride.

Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”

― Bill Hicks, from his comedy special “Revelations”, filmed in 1993

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